


If All the World and Love Were Young

by Firefly_Ca



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Captain America, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Break Up, F/M, M/M, Reunions, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firefly_Ca/pseuds/Firefly_Ca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve sees Peggy again for the first time since the plane crashed, forcing him to face a very unpleasant truth Peggy has already learned: sometimes the people you love leave and become strangers. Fortunately for Steve, sometimes they're able to wait, too. Inspired by that almost impossibly sad deleted scene from <i>The Avengers</i>. You know the one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If All the World and Love Were Young

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [momentsofweakness](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentsOfWeakness/pseuds/MomentsOfWeakness) for betaing the hell out of this and steering me back on course when I veered off-topic (which happened about a million times).
> 
> Like I said in the summary, I wanted a scene that showed Steve's inevitable reunion with Peggy, because I love that pairing so much. Another pairing I really love is Steve and Bucky. Rather than letting my internal shippers fight to the death, I offered them this fic as a compromise (plus, as a general rule, I love the idea of Steve's sexuality not landing on either of the extreme ends of the Kinsey Scale).

General abrasiveness and incorrigible narcissism aside, Tony Stark really _isn't_ that much like his father. When push came to shove, Steve always knew Howard would come through and do the right thing, that Steve and every one of the Howling Commandos could trust the man with their lives. But God in heaven, the man didn't have a sympathetic bone in his body.

 

Steve had watched Howard absently rub imaginary scuffs of dirt off his shoe as women wept and told Steve stories of missing fiancés oversea. He'd seen him yawn as battle fatigued, run-down GIs talked about the girls they left behind like they might never see them again. At first Steve gave him the shadow of a doubt and assumed it was only because Howard felt awkward in tense social situations. But then came the day when Howard interrupted a soldier's story about a younger brother being seriously wounded on the frontlines with a chipper, "That reminds me, Captain: I've got some new grenades for you and the boys to try out. Perfect for taking out slow-moving targets." From then on, Steve made it a point to be honest with himself about Howard's failings, which went beyond self-absorption – Howard was genuinely oblivious to the feelings of others.

 

But Tony Stark was another story entirely. Sometimes Steve wondered if he took after his mother, but having never met Maria, he couldn’t be sure. Still, he knew for a fact that Howard would only have been capable of teaching Tony to throw money at _his_ _own_ problems, not anyone else's. But no matter who was responsible, someone had definitely fostered Tony's carelessly altruistic lifestyle, possibly at the same time they were fostering his "be a lying, duplicitous bastard while being kind to others so they can't reject your generosity" mentality.

 

"Tony," Steve says into his phone, as evenly as possible and not for the first time. "Tony, you shouldn't have done this."

 

"All too happy to help, Cap," Tony chirps back, with long-practised situational blindness.

 

"No," Steve says, much more patiently than he feels. "You _shouldn't_ have done this."

 

"I won't lie, you made it a little tricky," Tony says. "For a man who is supposed to embody the hopes and dreams of America, you are _very_ suspicious. I thought it would be easy to get you onto an airplane, but it turns out you have to get up _pretty early_ in the morning to pull one over on the Captain. Or not go to bed at all, in my case."

 

"Tony," Steve says.

 

"Are you mad that there aren't any war orphans?" Tony talks over him. "We can find you some sad kids to make happy later, I promise."

 

" _Tony_ ," Steve says. " _Why_ did you do this?"

 

"Because you miss her," Tony says, finally a little serious. "You miss all of them, and you try to hide it, but we can tell. She’s the one person from your past who you don’t _have_ to miss, Steve, and if you keep putting it off you could lose your chance. Is talking to a woman so scary that it’s worth losing everything?"

 

"That's pretty big talk from a guy who hid from his girlfriend for a week straight when he accidentally gave her strawberries on her birthday."

 

"Okay, first of all, I didn't know," Tony says, instantly testy, which makes Steve feel better because, contrary to popular opinion, he is a bad man. "It was a _pavlova pyatt_ , okay? A _pavlova pyatt_. Do you hear 'strawberry' _anywhere_ in pavlova pyatt? No. You don't. _Because they don't announce their presence, Steve_. And second, the Starks invented passive aggressive evasion tactics okay? We are the _kings and queens_ of convenient subject changes. You can't beat us at our own game, and you can’t distract me from your newfound Peggy Phobia. Look, I _do_ get it, alright? She was the girl of your dreams. You're scared of what it's going to be like to see her again. That's perfectly normal."

 

Steve doesn't try to deny it, although he's not above quibbling over details.

 

"I'm scared because I've been in a non-aging coma for over seven decades and she's lived her whole life without me," he corrects.

 

Tony doesn't even miss a beat,

 

"And that's less normal, but still understandable. But it's time to man up and stop hiding. You need to talk to her face-to-face."

 

"Again," Steve says. "A bit much coming from the guy who tricked me onto his private jet bound for Winchester instead of just asking me if I wanted to see my old flame again."

 

"Would you have said yes if I asked first?" Tony asks.

 

"Probably not," Steve admits.

 

"And you're too beefy for me to strong-arm onto an airplane," Tony says. "All things considered, let's assume that for once my call was the right one."

 

***

 

Tony did _not_ make the right call. Steve isn't able to think of much as Stark's UK limo (he still can't believe he's friends with a man who keeps spare limos in different countries around the world "just in case") pulls away without him in it, but that one thought still fights its way through the panicked haze of his mind.

 

He doesn't knock. He just stands, staring at the door as he tries to remember that he's a superhero, and that the amount of anxiety one measly reunion is stirring up inside of him isn’t normal, but when the door finally creaks open without his prompting minutes later, he still isn't ready. His first coherent thought when he finally sees her again is, _She looks younger than 92._ The second thought comes chasing on the heels of the first: _She's not my Peggy anymore_. Ever-present through everything is the pain in his chest, suddenly bright and overpowering where it used to be a dull ache that faded away into the background.

 

Peggy was never the tallest woman, but she's even smaller now, her body having long since started to shrink in on itself. Her posture has lost its strong, almost severe meticulousness. Steve thinks he might be able to see a small hump beginning to form on her back, adding to the slight stoop that is now a part of her. Her once flawless skin is deeply lined with what Steve desperately hopes are laugh lines (he hopes her life was happy – she deserves to have been happy).

 

She must have known who was waiting on the other side of the door, because she opens it aggressively, like she’s just as nervous about this as Steve, but her face is blank when she looks at him. It takes a moment for Steve to register her gasp of surprise, and then he realizes that her expression is one of shock, not the carefully constructed mask of professionalism that she wore when they first met each other, a lifetime ago. For a second she sounds like she's in pain.

 

But however different she looks, she is still enough like the Peggy he knew that she’s able to recover quickly. The smile she gives him is a little shaky, but just as he remembers it. Steve tries to convince himself that her tears are the only reason her hands shake as she pulls him down into a hug.

 

"I've missed you," he says, hoarsely.

 

"I've missed you more," She tells him, and she's probably right. She's had so much longer to wait.

 

"You stood me up," She finally manages after a pause, and smacks him a little on the shoulder.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

He laughs a little when he says it, even though he feels anything but happy. Peggy still speaks with a beautiful crisp accent, but the clear strong bell tones are nowhere to be heard, the voice in its place weakened and worn by age. He keeps holding her close until he realizes he's only doing it to avoid seeing how much she's changed. It's only after he's reluctantly let go to see Peggy's expression – as stricken as he feels – that it occurs to him she might have been doing the same thing. Hiding so she wouldn't have to look at how Steve is exactly the same.

 

"I never thought I'd see your face again," she murmurs.

 

She doesn't look happy, either.

 

***

 

They're both feeling a little calmer now, sitting in the living room facing one another on the couch. Still, it’s a rocky start, with Steve unable to look at Peggy without feeling hopelessly lost and alone, and Peggy still familiar enough with the man she knew to be able to sense that, but not close enough to him anymore to know the right thing to say. Her half-joke about setting him up with her great-niece – a SHEILD agent now in her own right – because, “She’s so much like I was then, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference” was _not_ the right thing. She pales a little at the aghast look Steve gives her, like she’s only just beginning to let herself remember how strong their feelings for each other were, which makes it hurt more. The fact that she’s had enough time to get distance from it.

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m always getting mad at my grandchildren for making inappropriate jokes so soon after tragedies. I should take my own advice.”

 

“It’s been over 70 years,” Steve says, feeling like he’s weighted down with lead. “And it’s not like we were even engaged.”

 

He turns away and starts to look around before she can say anything else, just to give the painful clench of his heart enough time to ease. Peggy's home has more modern appliances and gadgets than Steve's: a laptop humming quietly in the corner; a complicated-looking television hanging from the wall; an e-reader on the end table. They're all things that Steve has used in the past – he's spent enough time around Tony Stark and Pepper Potts that it would be impossible to not have gained some level of technological know-how, but it's obvious that Peggy is far more comfortable around this sort of thing than he will ever be. It seems fitting that, just like when they were both still young, Peggy's  quiet competence would ensure she's better than him at managing the future, too. He lets himself be comforted by the unexpected rush of familiarity. He chases after the feeling, focusing in on Peggy's eyes as she talks, still as simultaneously cutting and friendly as they always were. Still full of spark and life.

 

"Do you know when I first realized we had a chance together?" She asks, cautiously, even though her eyes are dancing.

 

Steve can only shake his head.

 

"I'd already decided I liked you," she says, slowly getting up and making her way over to the cupboard in the corner. Steve looks away when he sees how stiffly she moves. Just listens to her voice instead. "I'd known ever since you got that ridiculous flag from the top of that pole. But you were so small, and so weak. It was awful of me, but I didn't expect you would survive the experiment, so I tried to keep what my superiors kept impressing on me was a ‘necessary professional distance'."

 

She laughs a little from where she's standing. A photo album held loosely in her hands as she gets lost in the memory.

 

"Then you actually made it, and you looked like, well, like that,"

 

She gestures towards him, almost a little mockingly, and it's so _Peggy_ that Steve can almost see her as he knew her, talking to him again across the room and the decades.

 

"Your outsides finally matched your insides, and I thought, _Surely if he’s interested he’ll have the courage  to ask me out now._  But you never did, you just kept talking about your friend James every chance you could, and how he used to look out for you, and keep you safe, and _idolize_ you, although I doubt you ever realized it. I started to think that maybe I was wrong about the way you looked at me, that maybe you were _that way_ about the infamous Bucky Barnes, and maybe that the feeling was even mutual."

 

"Bucky and I never –" Steve starts but Peggy cuts him off.

 

"I never said you did," she says, not unkindly. "I just implied that maybe it was what you wanted."

 

"I really _did_ like you. _That_ _way_ ," Steve says a little helplessly, barely remembering to use the past tense.

 

"I know," Peggy comes back over and sits next to him, patting his knee. "When you went to hell and back to save him, I finally got to see the two of you together, and that was when I realized."

 

"Realized what?" Steve asks, but Peggy is too busy flipping through the album to answer right away. Finally she finds what she's looking for and sets the book on his lap.

 

"That the way you looked at me was the same way you looked at him."

 

There are two pictures staring up at him from the black page, both taken when he wasn't aware. The first is from the day he took the serum, an apparent attempt to capture the event for posterity. As Doctor Erskine looks him over and checks his heart with a stethoscope, Steve is looking over at Peggy in a laughable attempt at subtlety, staring at her like she hangs the moon. The second picture is after Erskine and the first run in with Hydra, as Steve stands off the side, watching some of the Commandos playing poker with cigarettes as the pot. He’s smiling at Bucky, who is jubilantly reaching out to take his winnings. Even in the old, grainy photograph, the feelings telegraph so readily over Steve’s face, it would be laughable to try to deny them.

 

"I guess I'm lucky there weren't a lot of candid shots of me out there after the USO tours," he manages, turning away from the picture. From another face that he’s lost.

 

“Then I suppose you should count yourself lucky that I showed up,” Peggy says, a little teasingly, but mostly she just sounds sad. “That there finally was a girl looking twice at you who you wanted to look back at? It must have made things easier.”

 

"You were never a consolation prize," Steve says, protesting. He needs her to know this. “I wanted you because you were _you,_ not because I couldn’t have him.”

 

“You must have felt trapped,” she says, softly. “Being attracted to both of us.”

 

“He wasn’t ever really an option,” Steve says.

 

“But I wasn’t a consolation prize?” Peggy says, smirking at him.

 

“No, that’s not what I –“ Steve starts, but Peggy cuts him off with an almost disbelieving laugh.

 

“You still haven’t gotten any better at this, have you? Talking about your feelings? Talking in general?”

 

“I haven’t really had any time to _get_ better,” Steve mutters, doing his best to ignore it when Peggy starts a little, and her eyes go slightly glassy as she considers the implications behind what he’s said. “I only meant that... the way I felt about him made me feel wrong, and it was confusing, and I would have given anything for it to go away. And it was like when I met you, it changed everything. And nothing. The feelings I felt for men were still there, but when you walked into a room... you were everything I ever wanted. I never thought I would feel that way about a woman but that wasn’t why I wanted you. You were perfect. I _wanted_ to be a better person for you. I felt like you looked at me and all you saw was potential. You pushed me to be better, to be the man I always wanted to be. I’d look at you, and you were so beautiful and fierce, and all I wanted was to fight for you to love me back. I wanted to deserve you.”

 

“You deserved me,” Peggy says softly. She opens her mouth abruptly before closing it again, fidgeting just a little. Like she wants to say more but isn’t sure how. Finally she sits up ever so slightly straighter, like she’s steeling herself to do something difficult, and says,

 

“I went to the Stork Club that Saturday.”

 

Her voice is over-bright and strained at the edges, and Steve conjures up the mental image like it’s pure instinct, sees her all those years ago, in a red dress that ends just below her knees and a pair of carefully polished shoes that have a decidedly war-time sensibility – black and low-heeled. He thinks about her sitting alone at a table and staring at the dance floor. He thinks about how much he wanted to be there, how much he _still_ wants to be there with her, and something inside _breaks_.

 

The image of Peggy as she was rapidly gives way to the old woman in front of him, who’s concerned face quickly becomes a blur in the wake of his tears. She reaches out in a cautious apology, like she knew she shouldn’t have said anything, and he buries his face in his hands and turns away, trying to hide his graceless devastation from her sympathetic stare. She gently puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it a little when she feels him shake.

 

“I had such a wonderful life, Steve,” she says, even though her voice is laced with pain. “I met someone and fell in love, even though I was hurting so much it felt like I would never be able to feel anything like happiness again. We got married and we stayed together until the day he died. He was such a good husband, and a wonderful man. Always hell bent on doing the right thing, just like you. We had children and grandchildren, and I know I wouldn’t have wanted my life to turn out any other way.”

 

She stops and takes a shuddering breath before continuing.

 

“But when I saw you standing on my porch today, it was like I was 26 all over again: sitting in that horrid control room, listening to you die. You don’t look a day older, do you know that? I look at you now and still see the man I saw then, who I was starting to have decidedly ‘post-war’ thoughts about: Will he still be interested after we’ve nothing left to fight for? Will we find we have anything in common? What if he’s the One? God, Steve... I feel like I’m looking at a ghost. All those lost what-ifs and possibilities are sitting in front of me, reminding me that I’ll never find out what we might have been. It’s like I’ve watched you die all over again.”

 

“I’m right here,” Steve croaks, turning impulsively back to catch her up in a hug. “You haven’t lost me.”

 

“But I’ve lost my future with you,” she whispers. “I’ve lived my life without you, Steve. I’m so sorry I couldn’t wait for you.”

 

For a moment, Steve just wants to cling to her tighter and say he doesn’t care, that they can still try, still do _something_ to turn back time. In a world full of geniuses and impressive new technology, _someone_ must have found a way to give them a second chance. He chokes the words back and what comes out instead is,

 

“But I still love you.”

 

“Oh Steve,” Peggy murmurs. “You really don’t. You love a girl you left behind in 1945. So much has happened since then. I’m not her anymore. I’m an old lady who didn’t throw away a chance to live so she could dream about the past. You need to make that same choice, so that if you ever find another chance to love again, you can take it. I don’t want you to be lonely like this forever, Steve. You have to let go.”

 

“It hurts,” Steve gasps, resting his face on her shoulder.

 

“Yes,” says Peggy, running shaking hands through his hair. “It does.”

 

***

**Sometime in the Future**

Even though they don’t always come when he wants them, Steve would be a hypocrite if he didn’t believe in second chances. His whole existence has been built around them. Dr. Erskine gave him a second chance to be healthy when he saw something in Steve no one else could. Peggy and Howard gave him a second chance at his military career when they helped him sneak behind enemy lines and prove to the world that he wasn’t just a face selling war bonds. Peggy and James both gave him a second chance at the two most important relationships of his whole life – James when he didn’t die strapped to a table in a Nazi laboratory, and Peggy when she let him cry out his grief onto her shoulder and afterwards still had the decency to teach him to use Skype after so they could keep in touch. Just the fact that he’s alive right now is the result of the universe conspiring to give him another chance at life, in a world that is so different than anything he could have ever imagined.

 

And now, pacing in the hallway of a SHIELD-sanctioned holding facility, he knows he can see another second chance looming on the horizon. Somewhere behind one of the heavily-guarded, reinforced doors is Bucky, battle-worn and exhausted, but somehow almost as young as Steve. Like time was put on hold for him, too. Like fate stepped in and stopped both of them from going forward until they could do so together. Steve honestly doesn’t understand why the universe has given him all the opportunities that it has, but he decided a long time ago to never let these second chances pass him by, even one as terrifying as this. He thinks about Peggy holding him as he cried and telling him, “if you ever find another chance to love again, take it” and “the feeling was mutual” and “I don’t want you to be lonely like this forever.”

 

When Steve first heard about the Winter Soldier while getting briefed on his next mission, he had been struck by the idea that the man might be the only one to even begin to know how Steve felt, waking up every morning in a world he never quite belonged to. He was just so tired of feeling lost and disconnected from the people around him, even the thought of facing off with an enemy held an appeal for Steve that was truly frightening, if only it meant that he wasn’t the only one so out of place. It figured that, given Steve’s propensity for the impossible, the Winter Soldier would end up being yet another second chance, the chance he never had with Peggy. He feels a little guilty, thinking this way about a future with Bucky only months after that meeting with her, but seeing Peggy had felt like goodbye from the second he stepped off the plane; it was why he had put off any potential reunion for such a long time. The recognition on Bucky’s face as he stared at him from behind decades of programming and brainwashing didn’t make Steve feel like something was being taken away from him; it felt like something was being given back.

 

Steve tries not to get his hopes up, and if he’s honest he’s not even hoping for anything more than the chance to be Bucky’s best friend again. They’re both worlds away from their old place in Brooklyn and even if they’re both lost they still might not be able to find each other. Any feelings Bucky might have had for him, if he ever really _did_ , there’s no reason to believe they’re still there. Steve could live with that – he’s done it before, and had to learn to do it all over again after Peggy grew old without him. But he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Bucky doesn’t want _anything_ to do with him. If he can’t get any part of his old friend back, no matter how broken, after coming so close. He feels like he’s back where he was with Peggy all those months ago: waiting for a door to open, and to see where it takes him once he walks through it.

 

His panicked thoughts are still tearing around inside his mind, still trying to bolster him enough to say the things he knows he’ll have to when, what feels like hours later, the doors to Bucky’s containment cell slide open and Director Fury walks out.

 

“Any time you’re ready, Captain,” he says.

 

Steve takes a deep breath and goes inside.

 

 

 

_But could youth last and love still breed,_

_Had joys no date nor age no need,_

_Then these delights my mind might move_

_To live with thee and be thy love._

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the bit of poetry at the end of the story are both from ["The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174205) by Sir Walter Raleigh. I'm about to go all English major here, which I am very bad at doing in a serious tone. So by all means, continue reading if you are interested and don't mind if the mood I tried to create in the story gets completely destroyed. 
> 
> In case you are unaware of the story surrounding this poem, many moons ago, around the time when Shakespeare roamed the earth, there was this other playwright/poet called Christopher Marlowe. He wrote a poem called ["The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173941) which was basically written to be the be-all and end-all example of what is called a pastoral poem. Pastoral poems are all about young shepherds falling in love with pretty girls, and they live in a magical land where it's always spring, and nothing bad ever happens, and no one gets old, and there actually aren't sheep or cows at all, and life just kind of replays one perfect day over and over. Like "Groundhog Day," but with less Bill Murray and you never want it to end. 
> 
> So ANYHOW. Marlowe wrote this poem, a pastoral, and it's stuffed to the gills with this shepherd telling his girlfriend about the perfect, happy, wonderful things he wants to show her (and maybe do to her, because pastorals are all about lots of sex, even if they pretend otherwise). Then along comes this jerk Walter Raleigh, who decides that this pastoral needs a healthy dose of Fuck You, Reality Time pills. So he wrote "The Nymphs Reply," which consists of the girlfriend going "AHAHAHAHA no. Learn how to stop time for real and then ask me. By the way I want to break up. Because I question your priorities and I live with goddamn sheep and I want to move up in the world." (Paraphrased.)
> 
> The point of all this is, the two poems came to my attention lately when I was in the throws of Steve Rogers Feels, and it occurred to me that they both work really well at demonstrating both what Steve desperately wants, and what Peggy has to tell him he can't have. Until that last verse rolls around, anyhow, which is basically just Bucky running up to the Angst Party all, "Does someone need to stop time? I CAN DO THAT."


End file.
